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THE BEST OF WHAT REMAINS

The native brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) is a symbol of the best of what remains of wild landscape and intact mountain forests in the central Appalachian Mountain region. Naturally reproducing trout streams are associated with healthy ecosystems, clean water, and above all, relatively undisturbed and undeveloped watersheds.

Brook trout are no longer present in much of their historic range, and further loss seems inevitable, given continuing development pressure and changing climate. Most of the surviving brook trout habitat in the central Appalachians is restricted to small, relatively cool, high-elevation headwater streams.

And now, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is proposed to cut through that part of the central Appalachian region that holds the most promise for conservation of the brook trout and its habitat.

Due to the extreme difficulties associated with pipeline construction across steep mountain terrain, the proposed ACP pipeline corridor is routed to generally follow ridgelines and cross mountains at right angles. While this reduces construction problems, it does not avoid problems associated with erosion and runoff control, slope failure, and unavoidable karst systems in the valleys between the mountains. These risks will be compounded by hundreds of miles of access roads, hundreds of stream crossings, plans for winter-time construction, and requests for exemption from critical environmental standards – such as the time-of-year restrictions on construction designed to protect brook trout during sensitive early-life stages.

Trout Unlimited has developed a Conservation Success Index (CSI) that compiles the best available information on trout species distribution, populations, habitat features, and future threats. One of the outputs of the CSI analysis is a map that shows the location and health of trout populations. This map shows that the proposed ACP would bisect the area with most of the remaining high-integrity brook trout populations in Virginia and West Virginia.

Trout Unlimited has prepared a Story Map on regional brook trout habitat and the potential negative impacts of the ACP and other proposed pipelines. The Story Map, Atlantic Coast Pipeline Monitoring, describes a strategic stream monitoring program under development in partnership with the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and other conservation groups.

Trenching had been completed when this photo was taken on August 5th, 2018. FERC allowed Dominion to string pipe in this and other sections of the right-of-way corridor during the next week - despite a court order voiding required permits. FERC has also approved continued work to insall the pipe in the trench.

Forest Fragmentation and the ACPThe Atlantic Coast Pipeline would pass through areas of outstanding biodiversity in Virginia and West Virginia, fragmenting core forests and threatening species that depend on interior forest habitat.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline

The proposed pipeline will cross the central Allegheny Highlands, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the adjacent valleys. It will cut through 30 miles of national forest and cross numerous rivers, streams, and wetlands. This area represents the heart of the remaining wild landscape in the eastern United States, and it is a major biodiversity refugium that can only increase in rarity and importance.

The proposed pipeline will be 42 inches in diameter, requiring excavation of an 8 to 12-foot-deep trench and the bulldozing of a 125-foot-wide construction corridor straight up and down multiple steep-sided forested mountains. It will require construction of heavy-duty transport roads and staging areas for large earth-moving equipment and pipeline assembly. It will require blasting through bedrock, and excavation through streams and wetlands. It will require construction across unstable and hydrologically sensitive karst terrain.

Pipeline construction on this scale, across this type of steep, well-watered, forested mountain landscape, is unprecedented.

It will be impossible to avoid degradation of water resources, including heavy sedimentation of streams, alteration of runoff patterns and stream channels, disturbance of groundwater flow, and damage to springs and water supplies.

It will be impossible to avoid fragmentation and degradation of intact, high-integrity forests, including habitat for threatened and endangered species and ecosystem restoration areas.